Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk ** (of 4)

Secluded in a remote wintry forest on the Polish-Czech border an old woman talks to herself (with capitalized nouns), to animals, and periodically to old men who also live by themselves in houses in the woods. When given any opportunity by the author, she speaks at length about astrology. It snows a lot, nights are long, slush and ice are everywhere, and animal poachers roam the forest picking off deer, wild boar, rabbits and anything else they can shoot. Old Lady collects and preserves the dead animals she finds on her freezing rambles and complains to police and military authorities until she is virtually foaming at the mouth.

After a quarter of the book I wondered if it was perhaps an allegory on partisans hiding in the woods during World War II. Animals, standing in for Jews, were randomly shot and disappeared by hunting parties and military authorities. Occasionally, poachers, and even the Police Captain, are found murdered, apparently done in by the animals themselves.

By half way through, however, I decided the book was not that kind of allegory. Rather, it is a more superficial argument about the inhumanity of killing animals (Old Lady is convinced the animals are killing back) and whether Old Lady is also Crazy Lady. Or maybe Old Lady is the only sane person in a society blind to the repercussions of senseless brutality.  Tokarczuk has won the Nobel Prize for literature; so maybe I'm not the most reliable critic.